Yogi: During long retreats, my samadhi was good during the sit and I could be aware of all objects, even pain, without reacting to them. This experience keeps on repeating in every sitting. Is there something I’m missing? My daily activity awareness isn’t good and I try to do more walking meditation.
Sayadaw: Don’t sit so long; if you want to have the same quality of awareness when you go about your daily activities, do more daily activity awareness until you get the same quality of awareness as when you sit.
Yogi: I get my samadhi which then builds up the awareness only when I’m sitting.
Sayadaw: We’re not looking at samadhi; we’re looking at awareness. You don’t need more samadhi; it is balanced enough because your mind is not dull but you need to carry the awareness into your daily life. Your lack is practicing in daily life and making it seamless.
So, work on maintaining the awareness when you’re walking and eating.
Yogi: I can only get my daily activity awareness by building up the sitting samadhi and awareness. Without that process, it can be off for days before I remember to be aware in daily life. I need a month or so to build up a stable samadhi from the sitting.
Sayadaw: You have become attached to the idea that that samadhi gives you that type of awareness. You are not even giving yourself a chance; you are hindering any process you have by being disappointed that is not like that instead of celebrating every moment you have awareness, even if it is once a day.
You’re spending your time lamenting over what you cannot get instead of celebrating what you have.
Please go with the momentary samadhi. If you’re waiting for the big samadhi to carry your mindfulness, then when you’re about to die, you’ll have to go for retreat for a month first.
Forget about getting that kind of samadhi; work on being thankful for every moment your mind remembers to be aware and balance your sitting and walking with daily activities and work on appreciating every moment of mindfulness.
Yogi: There is another challenge. At the retreat, the mind can do the yogi’s jobs easily, but once I’m at home, the mind refuses to practice.
Sayadaw: We come geared up in a certain way when we go for retreat, but we don’t gear ourselves up the same way to practice at home. We don’t come with determination.
Home life isn’t going to take away our care for the Dhamma. The Dhamma doesn’t say we have to sit and wake up early. Everything is Dhamma; so, why do we categorize the Dhamma by when I wake up early and I do this or I sit, then it is practice. So, we have all these fixed ideas and undermine ourselves.
It is our mind that matters the most. What are our beliefs that are holding us back? What is in our mind that is telling us we cannot practice at home?
A big part of practicing at home is contentment and appreciation. If we go home and expect to practice as we practice on retreat, we’re always going to be disappointed. But if we’re happy for every second that we’re mindful and appreciate it, we’re going to grow it.